The thing with older producers from thar era and before, like Owen Morris, Stephen Street is they didn't just produce records, the mixed them too, they were usually involved in the whole creative process right down to the mix.


These days it's often different. Now it's usually producers and mix engineers on albums are two separate jobs. A lot of producers these days just sit in the studio and give guidance to the band in terms of direction, sound, arrangement but eventually it'll be sent off elsewhere to be mixed, often without the band or artist even present. Nothing wrong with that, there's some incredible mixers out there but I always thought the old school approach was better with guys like Owen Morris on morning glory who was the producer and mixed the songs, because they spend the time with the band, they have an understanding of how they want it to sound and they see it through right until the end. Surely the person building the song in the studio with the band from scratch would have a better idea of how the final mix should sound, rather than send it off to some Grammy winning mix engineer who has a conveyer belt of major label artists they're mixing from one day to the next.

Anyway, all that said. That James Hargreaves cover sounds exactly like what it is. A band recorded by a studio engineer that knows how to operate the studio but not really a proper producer or mix engineer. So all the sounds are there and well recorded, but nobody has finished the job and mixed it sound like a proper record.